CONTRIBUTED BY MAX LIEBERMAN (Tucson, AZ)
The gun flashed into her hand like a knife—only this knife shot bullets, significantly increasing its effective range as a weapon. She was too far away for me to karate chop her wrist, and anyway that’s a trick that only works once.
I knew my chances were slim… slim but still amply endowed, like a certain blond currently holding me at gunpoint.
I took stock of the tools I had to hand. No weapon, no leverage. Only my skill as a trained Shakespearean stage actor stood between me and the out, outing of this too brief candle called life. Eyes welling, I sank slowly to my knees.
“Please,” I shrieked, “Please no! Oh God, no! Oh, oh God!” I wet my trousers for good measure. She held the gun level, rolling her eyes in that way that people who are disgusted with your behavior will do.
Just then, I saw a glint of light through the warehouse window behind her. Time slowed as a hunched figure crept through the door she’d left ajar. Wheeling, the form prepared to throw something—a walking cane?—at my curvaceous captor. Catching the direction of my gaze, she began to turn, and I screamed to draw her attention back to me.
The cane caught her solidly at the base of the neck, and she collapsed, slipping between the rotted floorboards into the black water below.
“Just like Ophelia into the fountain,” came the clipped Oxford accent, as the famed director stepped finally from the shadows.
“’Thou shalt not escape calumny,’” I answered, and retrieved the old boy’s cane for him. Laughing, we exited together into the darkened streets of the theatre district, confident at last that the roles we had played did not amount to tragedy.
